How to keep feeders.

Hi,

I'm just after some advice on how to keep crickets / locusts.The pet stores round here seem them them in small tubs of about 20.

How many should I buy at a time? Should leave them in the plastics tubs? Or should I empty them into a larger storage tub. I understand this needs to have something like toilet roll tubes and egg crates for them to hide in. With some vegetation and damp kitchen roll for moisture.

I plan to keep them in a brick built shed. What sort of temps are ok? As winter is coming I may need to rethink or get a small heater.

BensBeardie":2clo4krq said:

Hi,

I'm just after some advice on how to keep crickets / locusts.The pet stores round here seem them them in small tubs of about 20.

How many should I buy at a time? Should leave them in the plastics tubs? Or should I empty them into a larger storage tub. I understand this needs to have something like toilet roll tubes and egg crates for them to hide in. With some vegetation and damp kitchen roll for moisture.

I plan to keep them in a brick built shed. What sort of temps are ok? As winter is coming I may need to rethink or get a small heater.

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I buy crickets in bulk (by the 800 lots) and separate them into smaller lots for keeping and gutloading, I use 750ml plastic takeaway food style tubs (reused cleaned cricket tubs) and I put up to 80 crickets into each.
Advantages, small batches ready to use and if any are sick I wont loose every cricket (maybe just one or 2 tubs of crickets will die off).

I'd simply have a large tub (about 30L) into which they can tipped when checking for sick and dead crickets (these need to be removed and binned) and I'd simply leave them in the shop's tubs BUT be sure to feed them some fresh chunks of carrot and some pellets (remove the carrot they came with if any there at all) and I'd gut load with buk choi 2days prior to using as feeders.

One dragon will eat one or two tubs worth (as you describe) them per day depending it's age and feeding schedule..

Maybe you should consider housing them in the house (so they stay warmer than 20degreeC.)

Thanks. I think they eat more than I realised! I live near at least 3 pet shops, so shouldn't be a problem if I get low.

I have a load of "chinese takeaway" tubs, but they are about 500ml. So I could keep a days worth in one those in, for up to a week?

This is would actually be good, for my 8 year old daughter or, as I can give her a tub of them at a time, for her to help feeding.

My wife won't entertain noisy crickets indoors. it will have to be something quiet. But I beleive locusts wouldn't make the same noise. I'm sure I can find somewhere under the stairs!

Hi great suggestion on keeping crickets! I would also like to add a little unknown secret about keeping crickets longer that many pet shops don't want you to know If you pull all dead crickets out of your bin everyday they will last longer :lol: Dead Crickets give off a gas that won't hurt you or your pet but it kills crickets so by removing them everyday ( and doing normal maintenance food water and plenty of ventilation) they will last longer. Thought for the day

Yes, keeping the cricket enclosure clean is key. Before I switched to roaches, I kept crickets (ordering them 1,000 at a time) in a 20g tank with mesh top. I put wood chips on the bottom (the kind you use for guinea pigs) which helped keep the smell down and made it easier to clean. I used cardboard tubes (toilet paper and paper towel tubes) for housing. Just stack them on one side. Then on the other side was food that I offered in peanut butter jar tops (any plastic tray will work). I refreshed the food (veg scraps and grain feed) daily and spot cleaned, removing any dead crickets. Once a week or so I pulled the food out, removed the wood chips on one side, put down new wood chips. moved the tubes and crickets to the other side and repeated until new clean bedding was on the bottom. Easy to scoop the bedding up along with poop and debris. I also found that they prefer warmer temperatures (they were kept in my basement) so I put a ceramic heat emitter over the housing side which seemed to keep them more active and happy.

Thanks, some great tips here.

With a young beadie, if a cannot make the mid day / middle feed, is there any thing I can leave for them, like worms in a dish, or food pellets? This would only be once or twice a week.

I used to just provide a big meal before work and big meal after work and it was fine. I always leave a salad in the tank for during the day even if it went uneaten. If salad is available and becomes familiar it tends to be easier to transition to mainly veges at 12-18 months.

Brilliant.
Thanks.

BensBeardie":22cf81un said:

Thanks, some great tips here.

With a young beadie, if a cannot make the mid day / middle feed, is there any thing I can leave for them, like worms in a dish, or food pellets? This would only be once or twice a week.

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An insect who is not fast moving and will tend to stay put is the best option in this situation.

Good options are BSF maggots ( place them in a feeding dish where beardie can see them moving wriggling about and beardie will eat them when it's hungry ) or some silkworms on a bit of fresh bit of mulberry leaf (I used small and medium silkworms as one the three meals of bugs per day for Toothless and Peppa (rarely found any left afterwards).

Would wax worms be ok? They seem easy to get hold of near here.

Wax worms are pretty high in fat so I don't recommend them as a staple part of the diet. They are OK as an occasional treat along with a varied diet.

I bought our BD, "Monster" when she was about 5-6 weeks old on December 19th, 2015 (same day as Toothless and Peppa,owned by KingOfNobys).

The first few months she stayed in my office (I telework from home full time) and fed her all she could eat in 10-15 minutes twice a day (maybe three times a day? I don't recall) and gave her some salad, which she pretty much never ate. She was probably 16-17 inches at the end of June. I remember one of the parents at my daughters birthday party (who owned BD in the past) saying she was massive for her age? I measured her a few weeks ago and she was a full 20 inches.

Anyway, we bought crickets 1,000 at a time and as she grew we bought them a little larger and a little larger. We were buying 3/4 inch crickets but they were all gone in about 2 weeks, so we tried 1 inch and by the time they were gone they had grown to full adults and were a little too large because we would notice sometimes she wouldn't poop for a few days. I'm in the process of phasing out crickets and moving to Dubia Roaches. Oddly enough, Monster has gotten to where some days she won't eat a single cricket (like last night). Although 15 minutes later I brought down a larger Dubia nymph and she was thrilled when I put it in her tank and gobbled it down with passion, after just turning her nose up at crickets, even though they were running all around her and very active.

I never had much issue with dead crickets besides one batch which probably got shocked due to cold weather, but the bin had good ventilation which may have helped with that dead cricket gas mentioned above (cook tip, I never heard that before). I'd get a few dead here and there, but mainly just molted husks.